Last December, some of them derailed in Cheektowaga but didn’t catch fire. Last July, nearly 50 people died in Quebec when a train like this derailed.

Governor Andrew Cuomo wasted no time putting out a statement Wednesday saying, “In addition to steps that states like New York are taking, the federal government must overhaul the safety regulations starting with taking DOT 111s of the rails now. They travel through neighborhoods and we cannot wait for a tragic disaster in our state to act.”

“It’s a little bit of the old Abbott & Costello, the oil companies say ‘Let the railroads make it safer’ and the railroads say ‘Let the oil companies make it safer.’ And often times safety falls in the middle,” Schumer says.